Alan Yu

Senior Fellow, International Climate Policy

Alan Yu is a senior fellow and the director of International Climate Policy at American Progress. Yu served from 2014 to 2018 as the U.S. Department of Energy’s director for Asian Affairs, where he coordinated the efforts and resources of the department’s senior leadership, technical offices, and national labs to ensure a unified strategy in U.S. energy policy and technical engagement with countries in East, Southeast, and South Asia.

Prior to serving at the Department of Energy, Yu served for 25 years as a foreign service officer at the U.S. Department of State, with postings in Washington, D.C.; China; Japan; and Afghanistan. He worked on a wide range of regional and foreign policy matters, with a focus on East Asia and international environmental issues. Earlier in his life, Yu was a middle school teacher in the Central African Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Yu received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master’s in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley.